TIME AND CHANGE 
the trunk of a tree, I do not fully appreciate the 
spectacle till I know she is feeling for the burrow of 
a tree-borer, Tremex, upon the larvee of which her 
own young feed. She must survey her territory like 
an oil-digger and calculate where she is likely to 
strike oil, which in her case is the burrow of her host 
Tremex. There is a vast series of facts in natural 
history like this that are of little interest until we 
understand them. They are like the outside of a 
book which may attract us, but which can mean 
little to us until we have opened and perused its 
pages. 
The nature-lover is not looking for mere facts, 
but for meanings, for something he can translate 
into the terms of his own life. He wants facts, but 
significant facts — luminous facts that throw light 
upon the ways of animate and inanimate nature. 
A bird picking up crumbs from my window-sill does 
not mean much to me. It is a pleasing sight and 
touches a tender cord, but it does not add much to 
my knowledge of bird-life. But when I see a bird 
pecking and fluttering angrily at my window-pane, 
as I now and then do in spring, apparently under 
violent pressure to get in, I am witnessing a signi- 
ficant comedy in bird-life, one that illustrates the 
limits of animal instinct. The bird takes its own 
reflected image in the glass for a hated rival, and is 
bent on demolishing it. Let the assaulting bird get 
a glimpse of the inside of the empty room through 
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